Nick Charde
Cities are constantly changing and evolving, but the cities themselves go nowhere. Buildings, neighborhoods, parks, and plazas come and go just as people do, while the city remains to absorb the effects. In Lewiston, the dilapidated mill buildings are a marker of the past, of the once vibrant and flourishing city. Some have been demolished, others renovated, but many remain abandoned and, in some cases, entirely untouched. A new city has gone up around them all, one with a massive basilica and a bright yellow pawn shop. Over the past two years, I have explored Lewiston with my camera and developed a series of images that speak to its eclectic character. My project reimagines these images through a combination of drawing and collage in order to visualize the relationship I have developed with this city and explore my own creative process more deeply.
When I began going out and shooting, I never set out with the intention of going to a specific location and would simply let my interests in the moment carry me along. I was not interested as much in the places I was photographing as I was in the process it took for me to find them. I use a variety of dry mediums including graphite, colored pencil, pen, and marker, as well as Bristol paper, tracing paper, acetate film, and cutouts of inkjet prints. My process involves cutting individual images into distinct sections, which are then rearranged into a larger composition, traced, and affixed to the back of the Bristol paper under a layer of clear film. I cut out “windows” in order to work in layers, which allows me to add and remove elements more easily, even after a final product has been created. In this sense, the piece is never finished, but always a work in progress, one that changes and evolves over time just as the buildings and spaces around Lewiston adapt to the city growing around them.
This project has allowed me to explore the city that has been my home for the past four years in new ways and under new contexts; it has given me a way of expressing my experience in Lewiston with more clarity and insight. I hope my work provides interesting and exciting new perspectives on Lewiston and inspires the viewer to explore it for themselves.